THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



lil 



ENGLISH PLOUGHS AND PLOUGHING. 



BY AN AMERICAN. 



Many of our readers may remember seeing or exoliangiug 

 conversation with the Hon. H. F. French, an American gen- 

 tleman, who visited this country some three years since, and 

 delivered at the meeting of the Suflfolk Agricultural Associa- 

 tion, lield at Ipswich, in 1857, a lively and amusing speech. 

 Tlie hon. gentleman — and it may be observed, en passant, thai 

 every one holding responsible office in the United States, as 

 Mr. French does, is an " honourable" — has since published, 

 in deliberate black and white, the conclusions at which his 

 English tour induced him to arrive in regard to English 

 ploughs and ploughing, or, as he has it, English " plows" 

 and " plowing." Mr. French commences by comparing the 

 weiglit of Piausome and Sims' seed-plough for two horses, 

 with that of implements designed for the same work at 

 Boston, (U.S.). " Messrs. Kansome's plough" (he proceeds 

 to observe) " weighs 280 lbs., and its length is 12 feet; the 

 average weight of American ploughs is about 200 lbs., and 

 their- average length about 7^ feet. The English implement 

 is entirely of iron, of fine workmanship and finish, with two 

 wheels, and is much less simple in its structure than the 

 American ; yet the American plough seems to be more firm 

 and strong than the other. Indeed, the extreme length of 

 the handles and beam of the English plough, notwithstand^ 

 ing that thty are of iron, gives to the hand accustomed to the 

 American implement a feeling of insecurity, as if the mate- 

 rerial were elastic, and would not be stiff enough to control 

 the work were a stump or fast rock to be encountered in 

 the furrow. This apprehension, however, is idle in most 

 English fields, which for 1,000 years, perhaps, have felt the 

 pressure of the ploughshare. But the difference between 

 English and American ploughing is fully as striking as that 

 between the ploughs. The worst ploughed field which I saw 

 in a summer's ramble through Old England might be said, 

 literally to appearance, to be done better than the best- 

 ploughed field that can be found in' a New England farm- 

 There seems to be no such thing in England as a crooked 

 or irregular furrow ; but however extensive the field, the 

 work appears uniformly as straight as a line could be laid 

 down by a civil-engineer with his instruments ; and whether 

 the operation be really more thoroughly performed than with 

 us or not, it has at least the merit of being accomplished 

 precisely as the ploughman desires. Our first impression 

 upon these observations would naturally be, that notwith- 

 standing the English plough is more clumsy and expensive 

 than the American, yet the former must have advantages of 

 structure, which for use in old and thoroughly-tilled fields, at 

 least more than compensate for these objections, Yet this 

 however natural, would be a hasty conclusion. Within 20 

 miles of Ipswich, where Ransome's highly-finished ploughs 

 are manufactured, in a week which was spent on a farm, 

 and among intelligent farmers, in the county of Suffolk, an 

 entirely different plough was generally in use — an implement 

 so ungainly, so large, and so ill-fashioned, that it seems as if 

 it must have been disinterred with the stone coffins of tho 

 Norman knights, which occasionally turn up in that neigh- 

 bourhood, or have been found in the antediluvian deposits of 

 coprolites, for which Suffolk county is famous. The plough 

 referred to is that which ia usually known in English books 

 as the Norfolk x^lough, the peculiarities of which are, that it 



has but one handle, and that its beam, running upwards at an 

 angle of about 45 degrees from the level surface of the ground 

 rests upon a framework supported by an axle, upon which are 

 two wheels of about the size of the small wheels of a Yankee 

 waggon. Those which I saw were of such style and finish as 

 common mechanics on a farm would be likely to give to their 

 productions. They certainly had no claim to the beauty of 

 simplicity, or to the higher beauty of scientific adaptation 

 to the put-pose of their creation ; yet the work done with 

 this implement, so rude and so ancient, seemed in the skil- 

 ful hands of English ploughmen to be just as straight and 

 even as that performed by the polished, modern, and more 

 artistic product of Bansome's shops. And thus we have 

 the mystery of English superiority in ploughing solved by 

 the superior skill of English ploughmen, without necessarily 

 admitting the supeiiority of English ploughs. A ploughman 

 in England is a ploughman always. Destined to that posi- 

 tion from his birth, if not long before predestinated to it, 

 embarrassed by no hopes or aspirations for a higher sta- 

 tion in life, he takes hold of the plough-handle in his early 

 j-outh, and practises in a more equable climate almost every 

 day of every month in every year of his life to perfect him- 

 self in this one operation. Trials of skill, iir which small 

 pecuniary rewards or the praise of his employer are accorded 

 to the winner for the best performance in the ploughing 

 match, are not unfrequent; and so by the division of la- 

 bour incident to large farms, and by a manual dexterity and 

 accuracy, which only long practice can give, the English 

 ploughman, with the implement, whatever its form, to which 

 he is accustomed, produces, on the particular farm to which 

 he is attached as a labourer, a result which challenges the 

 admiration of all. Tho question, however, between the Eng- 

 lish and American ploughs of modern construction is still 

 open. Does tire weight or the length, or does any other 

 peculiarity of the English plough upon the whole contri- 

 bute to the utility of the implement? It may be said that 

 difi'erences in the soil or the condition of the surface render 

 any such inquiry fruitless to us Americans, because a plough 

 that may be suitable and best for old fields in England 

 may be quite unfit for the newly cleared fields of the New 

 World. Such manifestly is the fact, but much of this New 

 World has already been converted into broad clear fields, 

 and much of our best alluvial and prairie land becomes by 

 a few years' culture as free from obstructions as the oldest 

 fields of Europe. And again, as has been stated, the Eng- 

 lish plough, of whatever form, is of far greater weight than 

 any American plough, and should therefore, other things 

 being equal, possess proportionably greater strength, and 

 so be suited for heavier work. Had we found the American 

 plough the heavier of the two, it would have been at least 

 a plausible explanation, that our new lands require a heavier 

 and stronger implement than those of a counti7 already 

 thoroughly subdued. The very great diversity of structure 

 of the various ploughs in use in England itself has not 

 failed to attract the attention of scientific agriculturists as 

 well as of plough manufactui-ers in England, for it is 

 manifest that the difference in the structure of the ploughs 

 in use in the different sections of that couutry cannot be 

 accounted for upon the idea that the difference in soil and 



